Underqualified
by Professor Monty Corndog
Summary: Commander/Jimmy fic. Jimmy has been pretending to let the Commander fix things that aren't even broken in order to spend time with him. When he actually does break, the lie quickly falls apart.


"See? You did great, Commander," Jimmy told the other masked man, gesturing to his arm with his opposite hand and waving it around. The Commander looked pleased with himself, stood with his hands on his hips in the lab as the robot sat on the edge of one of the desks.  
There hadn't been any problem with Jimmy's arm in the first place, although he would never admit to that out loud. Getting the Commander into the lab like this to do "repairs" was beneficial in two ways: it made the singer feel good about himself and seem like he was doing something productive instead of lazing around all day, and as much as Jimmy would refuse to confess to that either, he enjoyed the attention. Pretending to be broken in one way or another was hardly an admirable thing, sure, but if it meant they got to spend time together like that and MCBC would happily both converse and have physical contact with him, the robot knew he'd do much more than he already was for that opportunity.  
"I told ya. I told Eaglebones I was good at this science stuff too, but he didn't believe me. Shows what he knows…"  
"Well, I think you do better repairs than I do," responded Jimmy, giving the Commander an admiring look that his proud bandmate accepted happily.  
"Well sometimes I don't think you're a very good robot," joked MCBC before he left the lab, putting down the spanner that he'd been holding wrong for the past five minutes.  
Jimmy chuckled to himself, alone again in the cold room. He wasn't sure if what the human had said was meant to be an insult or a compliment, and, honestly, he felt like that a lot of the time. But he could see only one alternative to not being a good robot, and that was being a human.  
And that was the best compliment anyone could give.

The Commander's falsely-induced sense of concern towards Jimmy's well-being was a little different a week after the last "repairs". He would always hide that worry anyway for the most part, but as Crash brought the robot back into the Battletram in his arms, completely offline, it was written entirely across MCBC's face.  
"What happened? Did you see?"  
Crash shook his head, but Eaglebones appeared behind him in the doorway as the bass player took Jimmy through to the main room of the 'Tram.  
"He got hit in the head pretty hard during the fight," Bones told the Commander, shrugging his shoulders. "He just sorta crumpled and fell down like that."  
There was a pause in the conversation, and the Commander's nose wrinkled as he furrowed his brows.  
"Do you think we should call the Professor?" Eaglebones added.  
Now the Commander was shaking his head dismissively as he walked back into the room, looking over at Crash and waving an arm at him to not put the robot down on the table.  
"No, no, it'll be okay! Take him through to the lab, I can fix it!"  
His voice was as overconfident and cheery as always when he spoke, but there was still an underlying worry to it as it trembled.  
"You can?" asked Ricky, his dark eyes darting between the rest of the band, trying to gauge what his own reaction should be. Crash looked hopeful and trusting, Eaglebones looked utterly perplexed, and the Commander just looked determined. He nodded, going with the majority as always, and looked over at the singer. "How come you know how to fix him?" he asked, more curious than accusatory and sounding trusting.  
"Heck, I repair Jimmy all the time!" The Commander reasoned, becoming more sure of himself.  
"You do?" Eaglebones piped up, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his brows lowering.  
"Uh-huh. Take him through to the lab already, Crash. I've fixed Jimmy a bunch of times."  
He told the rest of the band to stay behind, saying that he could focus more if he was alone. Really, it was so he could take all the credit when Jimmy came back online.  
_It'd be great to see his reaction to me saving him,_ thought the Commander. _He'd totally owe me one. Again!_

Needless to say, things didn't go as planned. It was a couple of hours later by the time it was going dark, and the Commander sat at a desk in the lab with Jimmy lying stationary in front of him. The human had his head in his hands and his fingers wrapped tightly around his own hair, having discarded his helmet a while ago when it became too warm. He never usually noticed that, or how itchy the things were, unless he was horribly stressed.  
Here, that was an understatement.  
_Why was nothing working?_ Jimmy had shown him how to take him out of stasis before and it'd worked fine. But now, no matter which method he tried, he got no response. And it was so much harder to focus without the robot's soft and encouraging voice telling him what to do and laughing at all of his stupid questions and bad jokes as he did so.  
Maybe he would have to call the Professor, he thought, although the idea of it would incredibly hurt his pride.  
Not being able to do something that he used to be able to do so easily destroyed him.  
_It was only a week ago_, he told himself. _How could I screw up so badly in a week?_  
The Commander put his head down on the desk, slumping over even more with his face barely an inch from Jimmy's hand. So many things ran through his mind.  
How come he managed to mess up like this, when they were relying on him? When Jimmy was relying on him, especially? That was the worst thought, and one that had gotten to him on more than one occasion. It wasn't the thought of letting the band down, even though that did bother him more than he let on, no. It was seeing their disappointed faces.  
It was the same way he felt half the time when the others used their powers in a fight, especially to help him out.  
Inadequate. He always felt inadequate. Especially around Jimmy.  
Maybe that was why he acted like such a showboat all the time, why he needed so much attention - it assured him. Without Jimmy doing that, he couldn't work.  
And without Jimmy here… Well. That was a thought that didn't bear mentioning. That was suddenly playing on his mind more than anything else.  
What if it _wasn't_ the Commander's fault? What if Jimmy was just broken now, and even the Professor couldn't fix it? MCBC told himself he'd try until he couldn't try any more, and for once in his life, it was true. He got up to his feet again, rummaging through a toolbox, his features now a lot more haggard and a lot more frustrated at the same time.  
That was when he heard a familiar whirring sound behind him and spun on his heels.  
"Jimmy?"

The robot sat up on the table and looked around the lab for a moment, his systems scanning the area as he acknowledged where he was. He looked down at the tools and useless pieces of wire strewn around him - as well as the Commander's helmet - and sighed gently, realising he'd been shut off in their last fight.  
"Commander, did you fix me? Again?" he asked, a playful smile appearing on his features. He didn't know if he actually _had_ until he ran diagnostics, that was the thing. Maybe their leader was more intelligent in this field than he was letting on.  
"No," the human told him, his tone far lower and more emotionless than usual.  
_Oh_, thought Jimmy, looking at the immediate distrust and harshness in the other man's face. _This isn't good._  
He was pacing the lab now, and as Jimmy continued to sit on the desk, he felt awfully uncomfortable.  
"Y'know… I tried. I - I did, and I guess I should be glad you're back. And I _am!_ I am, in a way…"  
The Commander's tone sounded so conflicted it was almost as if he were interrupting himself.  
"But… I kinda realised somethin' when I was trying, Jimmy."  
_Oh, no. Here it comes. He finally caught on._  
"I wasn't doing anything, was I? I - I mean, before. I was tryin' now, but when you said I was _fixing_ you, I was just…"  
He trailed off, not knowing how to finish his sentence, and the robot nodded, unable to meet his eye as the Commander looked over towards him again.  
"Why?"  
"It seemed to make you happy," reasoned Jimmy, knowing that it wasn't much of an excuse, but it was the truth all the same. "You had fun, and… I liked having you here with me."  
"You lied to me so you could use me," the human snapped, and the robot flinched at the aggression in his tone immediately.  
"No! No - Commander - it's not like that at all, I just—"  
"You know what, Jimmy?"  
Freezing in place, the pair of them locked eyes, and the Jimmy swore he could see tears welling up in his bandmate's as he stormed forward to grab his helmet from the table, his gaze even more intense from such a close distance.  
"You're better at being a robot than I thought."

They didn't talk for days.  
Well, Jimmy tried his hardest, but the Commander would leave a room every time that he entered it, and only communicate via other people. More often than not he made Ricky or Crash be the messenger, the former of which seeming incredibly uncomfortable with it. Crash didn't really understand what was going on, as was the norm, and Eaglebones refused to be a part of it, insisting that they worked it out between them.  
It was more than a little upsetting for the robot, and even though the Commander insisted he was angry with Jimmy, every night he'd just bury his head under his pillow and try not to cry.  
He missed hearing his voice in the bunk room before they went to sleep. Jimmy respected the other man's wishes and didn't come in, meaning that not only did he not get to see him - even though he was pretending he never wanted to - but Crash became confused and upset by the fact that he wasn't getting a bedtime story.  
"It's not the same when it's not Jimmy," he would whine, and MCBC thought to himself that he knew the feeling all too well.  
Still, he hated being lied to so much. It broke his perception of how he saw the rest of the band. They were all honest, right? Always honest all the time… That's what friends should be like, he told himself, lost in his idealistic world where there wasn't a single problem with any of them. That was quickly changing, and suddenly they weren't perfect, and that was the worst feeling of all.  
He knew that out of all of them, he was the least perfect. To see the one he considered the best immediately fall so hard in his mind's eye meant that everyone else suffered, too.

That all changed again within a couple of days, much to the rest of the band's relief. After the rest of them had already gone to bed, the Commander had fallen asleep on the couch in the central room of the Battletram, and everyone else had decided that it'd be for the best not to wake him up. It was never a good idea to wake him up, they told each other, and for the first time in a while they laughed genuinely.  
MCBC awoke slowly to a light at the end of the hallway, and he could hear the robot's voice.  
He was telling Crash a bedtime story, and he could hear the larger man chuckling to himself and asking questions enthusiastically. Suddenly the singer felt extremely guilty. He was the one causing the problem now.  
Surely he should be the better man, like everyone was always telling him? Just let it go, accept it, apologise for being such a jerk…  
The light turned out again and he was in the dark, deciding he'd rather just go to sleep there again than ruin the mood for them.  
That's when he heard footsteps approaching the door, and quickly pretended he was already fast asleep. He could tell it was Jimmy just by the sound of his footsteps. The couch dipped at the other end as the robot sat down, glad that the Commander couldn't see how anxious he was.  
"Commander?" he asked gently, looking over at him. His eyes gave off a slight blue dim in the dark.  
The human mumbled something to let Jimmy know that he was awake, but he still didn't move.  
"I… I just wanted you to know I'm sorry for lying to you. It was wrong, I know. You still might not want to talk to me, but…"  
Sitting up, the Commander finally made eye contact with him for the first time in days, and a slight smile appeared on his lips. Jimmy couldn't help but mirror it.  
"I'm sorry for being such a jerk about it… Of course I wanna talk to you, buddy…"  
He leaned closer and rested his head on the robot's shoulder as if it were totally natural and comfortable, even as the other man flinched weakly. It was evident he'd immediately forgiven him. Truthfully, he'd forgiven him ages ago.  
"M-maybe I could show you how to actually fix me, if you wanted," he offered, his tone still incredibly soft but sounding slightly more cheerful. "I trust you."  
Those three words meant more to the Commander than he could describe, and he broke into a huge grin.  
"I could give it a shot."  
There was a comfortable pause in the conversation as the pair of them sat so close in the dimly lit room, Jimmy silently enjoying the warmth radiating off the human. But he felt the need to speak up again and finally put his mind at ease.  
"Did you… really mean that stuff? About - about me being a robot and everything? I mean, of _course_ I'm a robot, but—"  
The Commander cut him off with little more than a gesture, realising he was about to start rambling on in a panic. He slid a hand between the pair of them on the couch and intertwined his fingers with the cold steel of Jimmy's, gripping tightly.  
"Either way, you're perfect."  
The pair of them stayed there that night, quietly enjoying each other's company for the first time in a while, neither of them finding it necessary to say any more.  
For the first time as they both fell asleep, Jimmy didn't feel left out at bedtime.


End file.
